Charles Henry Parkhurst

Parkhurst, Charles Henry, 1842–1933, American clergyman and reformer, b. Framingham, Mass., grad. Amherst 1866, and studied theology at Halle and Leipzig. He was pastor of the Congregational Church at Lenox, Mass. (1874–80), and of the Madison Square Presbyterian Church, New York City (1880–1918). Becoming interested in municipal affairs and having been elected (1891) president of the Society for the Prevention of Crime, Parkhurst inaugurated a campaign against Tammany Hall (see Tammany), personally collecting evidences of corruption to substantiate his charges. The campaign led to the appointment of the Lexow committee to investigate conditions and to the defeat of Tammany and the election of a reform mayor in 1894. Parkhurst's writings include Our Fight with Tammany (1895, repr. 1970) and My Forty Years in New York (1923).